Andrew Cherry

Andrew Cherry (11 January 1762 – 12 February 1812) was an Irish dramatist, songwriter, actor and theatre manager. Life He was born in Limerick on 11 January 1762. His father, John Cherry, a printer and bookseller in Limerick, is said to hare intended him for the church. At eleven years of age, however, Cherry left the Limerick from school and entered the employment of James Potts, a printer and bookseller in Dublin. From an early period, he displayed a taste for the stage, and at the age of fourteen he played as an amateur, in a room at the Black-a-Moor's Head, Towers Street, Dublin, Lucia in Addison's Cato. Three years later be first appeared at Naas, county Kildare, as a member of a strolling company under the management of a Mr. Martin, playing Feignwell in A Bold Stroke for s Wife. As a strolling player in Ireland, he purchased, at the cost of constant exposure and imminent risk of starvation, a fair knowledge of his art. According to the accounts of his career published during his lifetime, he was on one occasion three days without food. Yielding to discouragement he returned to his former occupation and remained in Dublin for three years. After one or two attempts to resume his profession of an actor he joined the company of Richard William Knipe, a well-known and popular manager, whose daughter, after the death of her father, he married in Belfast. Cherry then joined the 'principal provincial company of Ireland' under the management of Atkins, and played with an increasing reputation in the north of Ireland a round of leading characters. Mr. Ryder having in 1787 been engaged for Covent Garden, Mr. Cherry was called up to supply his place at the Theatre Royal, Smock Alley, Dublin. As Ryder's first appearance took place on 25 October 1766, this data is seen to be not wholly trustworthy. For five or six years Cherry, familiarly known as 'Little Cherry,' enjoyed a high reputation in Dublin. His first part in the Smock Alley Theatre was Darby in the Poor Soldier of O'Keefe. Early in the season of 1791–2, he appeared with his wife in Hull as a member of the company of Tate Wilkinson, playing comic characters previously assigned to Fawcett, who had just quit the York circuit for Covent Garden. He first appeared as a member of Wilkinson's troupe at Wakefield as Vapid in the Dramatist, and Lamrillo in Jephson's Two Strings to your Bow.